How to be a `web' `designer'
How to be a `web' `designer'
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There is an increasing amount of `web' `design' around at the moment, and you<br>may well want to get involved in this exciting trend. Here's how:
Requirements
You will need:
A computer -- preferably an Apple Macintosh, as it would never do to be using<br>the same platform as the majority of your users (and anyway, the web<br>is cross-platform, isn't it?).
A copy of Adobe<br>Photoshop -- preferably an early<br>version which isn't very good at .gifs and .jpgs.
An authoring package for some multimedia technology with a snappy name (let's<br>call it, for the sake of argument, Wizzytech Treacle).
An early edition of the book HTML for Stupid People.
A limitless belief in your own abilities.
Publishing on the web
First, site layout
The first thing to do is to figure out the rough layout of your site. It<br>doesn't matter if you don't know what the content or even the name of your<br>site are going to be yet, as these can always be changed later to fit your work.
HTML is a great language for layout and graphic design (see your copy of<br>HTML for Stupid People). The central concept in HTML is the<br>image, represented by the tag. To lay out your site,<br>first sketch out the design on paper as you would with the design of an<br>advertisement or a new airport or something.
Next, fire up Photoshop and create a new image. Obviously, you'll<br>want to make it fill the monitor (why else buy a 21" model?). Draw out your<br>web page as you want it to appear (you might even want to scan the sketch you<br>made earlier, as this will allow you to play with your expensive scanner),<br>but don't worry about any of the irritating techy bits at this stage. Common<br>web browsers are good at understanding pictures. At this stage, you should<br>ignore anyone who mentions things like `average screen size 800 by 600<br>pixels', `modem', `limited bandwidth', or `256-colour display'. These people<br>are just ignorant techies stuck in the 1970s.
You should also remember that real graphic designers went to Graphic Design<br>School to learn how to do this stuff, but you'll be able to do just as well as<br>them if you follow these simple rules:
Primary colours are good, especially if they clash slightly; you should aim to<br>make your web pages look like an episode from a 1960s science-fiction<br>television show (you can add flashing lights and Leonard Nimoy later).
You don't really need to be able to draw to design, since you can always head<br>down to your local branch of<br>Software Warehouse and buy<br>clip-art CDs. The ones to buy are the ones with titles like `4 million<br>photographs on CD for a fiver'.
The key concept in graphic design is the Photoshop alpha blend. If<br>you ensure that every part of your design is alpha-blended into another part,<br>then people will instantly recognise your site as being well-designed. (In<br>case you've forgotten, alpha blends in Photoshop are applied<br>using the layer transparency control.)
Content
The next thing to do is add the content. `Content' is the world-wide-web word<br>for `text', and the simplest way to add content is using the Text tool in<br>Photoshop.
Typically, you will want to get someone else to write the content for your web<br>page, as this task is below you and your advanced Web Design skills. For<br>example, if you are writing a web page to advertise a new piece of computer<br>software called, say, MidgetWrite for Microsoft Windows 7.0, they<br>will need to write something like
MidgetWrite for Microsoft Windows 7.0 is an exciting and<br>innovative new product which allows corporations to leverage their core<br>quality initiatives while maintaining a pro-active, forward-looking management<br>process.
It is also important that they put below this
MidgetWrite for Microsoft Windows 7.0 has no major Y2K issues.
(Obviously if the product you're advertising isn't called MidgetWrite<br>for Microsoft Windows 7.0, then they'll need to change that bit.)
It is very important that there isn't too much content, as otherwise you'd<br>have to use a boring small font. You want to have small amounts of content so<br>that you can use a big, exciting font (if you don't have any big, exciting<br>fonts, head on down to Software<br>Warehouse and buy `4 million top-quality fonts for a fiver', and ask a<br>nearby technical person to install them for you). If possible, you should use a<br>font which nobody else on the web uses, so that your page will stand out (this<br>might be a good time to spend a day or two browsing the web looking at fonts).
However much effort you put in cutting down on the content, you might well<br>find that there's more than one page of it. You should plan for this<br>eventuality as follows:
Make several copies of the image of the page (before you put in the content).
Put different parts of the content on different copies of the image.
Save the images you've just made, but use different filenames for each<br>one.
Putting it on the web
Now you need to turn the images into web pages. Although this sounds<br>complicated, it's...